Original subtitles

-As a kid, I loved war movies.

Especially anything happen to do with airplanes.

So as soon as I graduated from High School, I enlisted in the Air Force.

I was fascinated by the technology of war.

Jet engines, radar.

But I never saw action during my service.

I never had to confront making the ultimate sacrifice for my country.

More than a million soldiers have laid down their lives in the name of this country.

They did it because, they believed the wars they fought were necessary, and just.

Every country is proud of its veterans.

And there are cemeteries all around the world just like this one.

They are reminders of the terrible human cost of war.

Can we put an end to this sacrifice?

Is war inevitable?

Or can we ever hope for a lasting peace?

Is technology making war more likely, and more deadly?

-I killed three people.

Two of them were obliterated into pieces.

-If one nuclear weapon is used, it would be mutually assured destruction.

MORGAN: Is peace simply the absence of war?

So this is the peace wall.

It's put up for protection?

-Yes because violence does flare up.

MORGAN: And can we ever move beyond our urge to fight?

-Even after genocide, revenge doesn't allow you to move on.

*

MORGAN: This is my journey.

To discover the ties that bind us.

And the common humanity inside us.

This is The Story Of Us.

*

I'm on my way to a remote region of southern Ethiopia

to meet two tribes that have been warring

with one another for generations.

The Dassanech and the Nyangatom.

The Dassanech and Nyangatom societies center around cattle.

But in this arid environment good grazing land is scarce.

And it's often the flash point for conflict.

John Lomala, a member of the Dassanech, has invited me to his village to witness

a peace ceremony, an effort by the tribal elders, to end the fighting.

So John, tell me, where am I?

-You are in a Dassanech village called Damech.

-Damech?

-Damech is a village of Dassanech.

And Dassanech is people of the Delta.

-People of the Delta?

I mean I live in a Delta also in Mississippi so, we have that much in common.

-In this village when I was born, my family was telling me that my enemy is Nyangatom.

They kill my uncle, they kill my aunt.

-Wait a minute, you're telling me that these small villages,

you fight and kill each other?

-Yes.

We have been fighting, over the pasture yeah, over the pasture water, grass.

Here you need to have cows to have a wife.

And if you don't have anything you should go

and steal some animals and get a wife.

-And that starts the fight? -Exactly.

-So, about how many people have been killed in the last, two years?

-I don't know the exact number but, maybe 20.

-That's a lot, that's a lot of people in a small village.

-He is a Dassanech warrior. -Are you?

-Yeah, you can see he cut his chest.

This is a symbol of a warrior.

This signifies that he has killed an enemy.

-How many men do you kill?

(speaking in native language).

-He said two. -Two? -Yes.

-Was it a fight?

(speaking in native language).

-He say with AK47, not his spear, he use his AK47.

-How does he feel about that?

-He's happy because, he's a warrior you know, everybody afraid of him.

MORGAN: John explains to me that there is tension between the young men who want to

prove themselves and get married, and the elders, who want to end the killing.

-People are losing their lives, people are dying.

-Okay. -So the elders decided to have peace ceremony.

-So now the elders have said that's enough, we gotta get together and stop this.

-And make peace and bring people together. -So how does it work?

What is the first thing?

-So, the first thing is we give a message to the young warriors.

Message is, tell the Nyangatom we want them to come to our village,

we offer peace ceremony.

If the time comes, the Nyangatom will come.

-Is that them? -Yeah that's them.

-Alright now, what are they doing?

-Now the Dassanech elders, they are with a calabash full of clean water.

They're there to bless them, welcome, welcome, welcome to our village.

Welcome to our village.

-Welcome, not blessing. -And they're washing the sins.

MORGAN: To show their commitment to peace, the Dassanech sacrifice a cow,

a valuable asset at the root of their conflict.

Both tribes will feast on the meat later but first,

they must perform a ritual with the cow's innards.

That's actually the stomach contents.

Like, first stomach of a cow.

The grassy stomach contents represent the contested grazing land.

Smearing it on each other was a step towards being able to share this contested land.

Now, the peace talks can begin.

(speaking in native language).

-He's saying that the last peace was spoiled by this tribe

because of their stealing.

So, from now on we want to stop these kind of activities.

May God support us.

(speaking in native language).

-So he's cursing, also the thieves.

-And the people who are answering are saying something like, "amen."

-Amen, exactly.

MORGAN: The elders persuade the young warriors that the cycle of cattle raiding

and killing has hurt both tribes.

But I want to ask the elders how confident they are in this new peace.

-We have two people from different tribes, from Dassanech tribe is this elder.

This elder is from Nyangatom.

-Okay, when was the last time you had a peace ceremony?

(speaking in native language).

-Seven years ago. -Seven years ago?

Do you expect it to last a long time?

(speaking in native language).

-He is saying that when we are one, when we come together and we pray God,

of course he will give us peace.

-Of course.

(speaking in native language).

And I hope this peace lasts a long time, a long time.

Thank you.

As the ceremony ends, I notice a Nyangatom and a Dassanech elder leaving

the village together.

Where are those two men going?

-They are going to bury a spear.

They used to use the spear to kill each others,

so we are brothers then why cannot we bury what we used to kill each others.

They are saying we are enough, enough is enough so no more conflict,

no more war.

-Since the dawn of society, people have waged war,

primarily over limited resources.

Where people live off the land and there is not enough good land to go around,

war becomes an inevitable part of the cycle of life.

The best you can do is what the Dassanech and the Nyangatom are trying to do.

Find a balance between war and peace.

Around the world, we continue to fight over land, and other natural resources,

as we have done for millennia.

And, like the Ethiopian elders we long for peace, because of the horrors of battle.

But technology is causing a fundamental shift in the balance of war and peace.

Drone warfare means that soldiers don't have to be on the battlefield

to engage in the fight.

Over the past few decades, the United States has targeted more than

4,000 suspected terrorists in drone strikes.

Those strikes have killed more than 6,600 people.

But opponents see drones as a threat to peace.

They believe drones lower the barrier to war and kill many more innocent

civilians than officially reported.

I'm meeting former US Air Force drone operator Brandon Bryant.

He is a fierce critic of the American Drone Program.

-I have concerns about how the drone community operates.

I think that there should be independent investigations and transparencies about the

responsible use of any weapon systems capable of killing another human being.

-I was a little kid during World War II.

And following the end of the war of course,

glory, bravery and patriotism,

it's instilled in me and, where do I go?

Air Force, how do you feel going in?

-So when I joined the military I really did it, to serve my country.

But when I got to the drone base I didn't know what I was doing,

they didn't tell me anything until I got there.

They put me in a small theater with about 25 other individuals and then they

played a montage video of drone strikes.

And Sergeant after it's done and he's standing at parade rest,

he's like "your job is to kill people and break things,"

and I was just like "holy (bleep)."

What am I doing?

-What is it like flying a drone?

-I was an MQ-1 Bravo Predator Sensor operator.

So I control the camera and the missiles.

Like that's my job.

The pilot keeps the aircraft in the air and basically we support one another.

If you look out the window actually,

if you look down there that's kind of the same...

paradigm view that we have.

If there's a target to be attacked, they're like okay this is what's going on.

You're gonna watch a person outside this guy's house.

I mean you're just waiting for an opportunity for them to get into a location,

you're gonna shoot em.

-Do you know how many kills?

-13 directly, my first shot it was at winter in the mountains of Afghanistan.

I killed three people...

two of them were obliterated into pieces and one of them, watched him bleed out and then

watched an infrared become the same color as the ground that he died on.

-Is there remorse or there was like, consternation?

-I'm sitting there like, I just watched a man bleed out.

That felt horrible, I wanted to cry, I felt you know, you feel the

"this is what I just did", the adrenaline rush.

I mean, it was all sorts of weird, weird feelings.

MORGAN: On one mission,

Brandon was given the orders to strike a house.

Right after firing the missile, he saw what he believed to be a small child

walking into the structure.

But it was too late to abort.

MORGAN: Technology has shifted the delicate balance between war and peace

many times in human history.

But drones might be the biggest disruptors yet, making war possible at merely the

push of a button and posing new moral dilemmas for soldiers thousands of miles

from the battlefield.

Air Force Drone operator Brandon Bryant is sure he killed an innocent child who

walked into the strike zone he had just targeted.

His superiors insisted he killed a dog.

-You get into that position where you just don't feel like you have

any power to change anything.

I felt the helplessness and that is another sense of post-traumatic stress.

I don't know how I survived it, mentally or spiritually it was hard.

-Survivor's guilt. -Hmm, hmm.

MORGAN: When Brandon left the Service after six years, he received a certificate.

It stated that over 2,300 people had been killed due to intelligence gathered

on his drone missions.

How did you feel when you saw that number?

-Once I had that sheet, I recognized that the background noise in my dreams

was a legion of ghosts.

I was haunted by every tally mark on that piece of paper.

It really hit home with how much we can know and how little we actually

know of who these people are.

Like they're just numbers.

They're just a tick on a database.

MORGAN: Successive US administrations have maintained that drone missions

are effective and reduce civilian deaths.

-These strikes were legal.

They are ethical and they are wise.

MORGAN: But Brandon thinks America's increasing dependence on drones,

is fundamentally changing our attitude to war.

-You know I've heard all the justifications for doing what I've done.

Maybe if it was used ethically or more responsibly, I could be okay with it.

But we were just told our job is to kill people and break things,

that's what we're going to do.

And that doesn't sit well with me.

-You think this is a worse way to fight a war than conventional warfare?

-I think that we need to reassess how we're utilizing this technology.

Cause it's so easily abused.

You no longer need to train someone to go into combat, you just need to train someone

to control a joystick and press the button, and take another person's life.

MORGAN: Brandon thinks he's seen the future of war.

And he doesn't like where it's headed.

He dutifully completed thousands of hours of drone missions for the Air Force.

But now, he has a new mission.

He believes that by revealing the inner workings of the drone program,

we can all come to understand the consequences of using such hi tech killing machines.

With our ever growing population, and our ever developing technology,

humanities long tradition of fighting over limited resources seems

destined only to intensify.

But I heard about an ancient ritual in South America that may offer a solution.

Anthropologist Kate Centellas is traveling to the town of Macha,

in the highlands of Bolivia to witness a celebration called Tinku.

She's meeting Wilber Garnica Fajardo, a member of the Quechua,

an indigenous Bolivian group.

-Welcome to Macha.

-I'm really glad to be in Macha because I've never seen Tinku

and I've been studying Bolivia for a long time.

Can you tell me a little bit about what's going on here today?

-We are waiting for the big fiesta.

They will celebrate the end of the harvest.

-And that's called Tinku?

Is that right?

-Tinku is part of this big party we have, every fourth of May.

MORGAN: Approximately 3,000 people from 60 highland and lowland communities

surrounding Macha travel to the town square to take part in the festival.

It's a harvest celebration, and an act of thanksgiving to the mother goddess Pachamama.

-For us, for the Andean people, Pachamama is Mother Earth.

MORGAN: The day begins with music, ritualistic marching, dances,

and plenty of chichi,

a libation made from fermented corn.

-It's like the end of the year for us, with the end of the harvest

and we have a big explosion.

MORGAN: The energy and excitement builds until, right on cue...

fighting breaks out.

MORGAN: Every year, on the fourth of May, a

town square in the Bolivian highlands becomes a battlefield.

Tinku is a ritual war in honor of the local Quechua people's mother goddess.

-The Tinku has started, so there are fights one to one.

If in this day you are bleeding, means you are giving to the Gods to Pachamama.

-Are they really angry with each other?

-No, not angry.

They're 100% with a high emotion.

-So how do they know who to fight?

-Always between a guy from the lowlands, against a guy from the highlands.

MORGAN: Tinku is a blood offering to Pachamama.

But it also has a more practical function.

It's a release of aggression between rival groups that might otherwise get into

deadly disputes over land.

-And so how do they know when it's done, when a Tinku is done?

-They get exhausted, or someone is bleeding.

In that case they stop.

MORGAN: As the day and the drinking go on, larger groups start to brawl.

Eventually, the police step in, firing tear gas to stop the Tinku

from getting out of control.

-So, there was a lot of aggression out there and it, it looked really chaotic and

there was a lot of violence.

Do you think that that helps the communities maintain peace between one another,

over the year?

-Yes of course.

If they don't have the Tinku, they go out, without liberating their energy.

So today, people return back to home satisfied.

-And that helps prevent these other uncontrolled acts of violence in some ways?

-Yeah, yeah, yeah, it helps yes.

-Tinku may sound brutal.

Violence for violence sake.

But it gives the Quechua a way to work with human nature.

It provides an outlet for the aggressions that build up inside all of us.

I think it's pretty ingenious.

Instead of letting tensions boil over into all-out war, once a year,

they get it out of their system.

Could the Quechua model for keeping the peace work elsewhere?

Sadly, the gulf between warring factions in many parts of the world seems too great.

Their only apparent pathway to peace is segregation.

I'm on my way to Belfast, to Northern Ireland.

For hundreds of years Ireland has been ground zero in a struggle of loyalties to

religion and nation.

On the one side, Catholics, who want to join the Republic of Ireland.

On the other, Protestants, loyal to the United Kingdom.

Between 1968 and 1998, in a period known as "The Troubles,"

more than 3,000 people were killed.

To stem the terrible violence of the troubles, over 100 walls like this were put up

across Northern Ireland, segregating Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods.

When the war ended in 1998 the walls remained.

Warring sides divided brought an end to war but, is that the same as peace?

I'm meeting a man who has lived his whole life in the shadow of one of these walls.

His name is Daniel Walsh.

-Hi Morgan nice to meet ya. -Hi, Daniel, how are you man?

-Yeah, all good, yeah. -That's great.

So this is the peace wall?

-This is what's known as the interface, between the two communities.

-Interface between the Protestants and the Catholics?

-And the Catholics, yes.

-And which side of the wall are we on now?

-We're on the national side, the Catholic side.

-The Catholic side, the National side.

So, you've never not known this wall?

-It's all I've known.

-It is put up for protection? -Yes.

-To protect you or from them, or them from you?

-You could say from both.

It's not all one sided.

-But is there much violence that goes on now?

-There were attacks ranging from golf balls to glass bottles

paint bombs around here.

There was one time where my one year old son,

brought him out to the door for some fresh air and

we were standing here and I had him in me arms.

And there was a guy across the street who is not my biggest fan.

-Across the street in one of those windows or?

-Yeah, he had a clear view of myself and my son.

A few minutes later he had a large piece of masonry,

had come over and just bounced off my roof there.

And it landed not too far away from me with the intent of doing some damage

to myself or my son.

And luckily it landed you know, away from us.

MORGAN: Daniel got tired of the simmering conflict.

So he enrolled in a program that put together people living

on opposite sides of the walls.

He has struck a friendship with a Protestant woman,

something that is not only rare, but even dangerous in Northern Ireland.

I don't know your name.

I'm not gonna show your face.

And I'm disguising your voice.

-Yep. -Why is that?

-Some people don't like the idea of Protestant and Catholic being together.

And they've seen that I got too friendly with the Catholic people.

They came to my house and threatened me, I was homeless for six months,

I had to move.

-This isn't a couple of neighbors coming round and saying we're

not happy with this.

This is sinister people with violence in their mind.

-Do you think you could have been seriously harmed? -Yes.

-Just by having a Catholic friend? -Yes.

-Tell me about who you are yourself?

As much as you can?

-I'm a Protestant.

I was 11 year old when the trouble started.

I've seen a few people being shot and another person, his head was blown off.

It was very, very hard growing up in those days.

-What did you think about Catholics?

-When I was young I never liked them because, I never really knew them.

-What about you Daniel?

Did you grow up with an idea about Protestants?

-They were, not so much the enemy but, they certainly weren't your friend.

-The Good Friday Accord signed in 1998 to all intents and purposes,

that would end the violence between Catholics and Protestants in Ireland.

But it didn't.

-Why do you think it didn't?

-That should have been it.

But you still have elements who don't want to be seen as giving in to the other side.

-There was families that their loved ones was murdered through the troubles and it's

harder for them to forgive.

-The Good Friday Agreement was a nice idea um, on paper.

But totally left behind were the people in the communities who were suffering

and are still suffering.

There was no effort at all to bring those people together.

-What do you hope for Ireland?

-Well it's education and having both communities being,

and working together from the very outset of life.

It's much, much harder as adults to bring people together when they're

brainwashed to think a certain way.

-Catholic and Protestant are not enemies.

We're human.

-Well I can see that that would be a big wish, from both of your sides.

I want to thank you both very, very much.

Particularly you.

-Thank you. -I hope we're not blowing your cover.

Robert Frost wrote "good fences make good neighbors."

But I don't think he was imagining a 30 foot barricade.

Daniel's house was attacked.

His Protestant friend fled her home.

But, as long as there are people like them, people who dare to cross the

divide I believe, there is hope for peace.

I think their simple act of friendship, and others like it,

will eventually tear down this wall.

Northern Ireland isn't alone in equating the separation of warring sides with peace.

This uneasy form of peace exists even where there are no walls.

For decades, we've maintained global peace by the threat of a war

that would destroy us all.

But can this nuclear peace last?

MORGAN: I went to a school like this back in the 50s.

The dawn of the Cold War.

Back then, children all over the country were taught "duck and cover" drills.

As if hiding under your desk would protect you from a nuclear attack.

Well thankfully, the bombs never came.

Many did say that that's because, nuclear weapons were entirely too destructive.

The threat of total annihilation kept global peace.

And it worked during the Cold War.

But how long will it keep working?

To answer that question, I'm traveling to London to meet Nobel Peace Prize winner,

Doctor Mohammed ElBaradei.

As the Director of the International Atomic Energy Agency,

he was responsible for UN nuclear weapons inspections.

This included determining whether Iraq had nuclear weapons in 2003.

-We have to date found no evidence that Iraq has revived its nuclear weapon program

since the elimination of the program in the 1990s.

MORGAN: We decided to meet for our discussion of global brinkmanship at

Bellerby and Company, a maker of hand crafted globes.

Could you just show me, how many countries we know,

have nuclear weapons?

-We have nine for sure. -Yeah.

-We have the United States. -Hmm, hmm.

-Then, Russia.

Together they have 90% of the nuclear weapons.

90%.

-These two...

-And then, United Kingdom, France.

And then we go to China.

India, Pakistan, then Israel.

-Israel. -North Korea.

So these are the nine we know for sure they have nuclear weapons.

We have two or three we have discovered who were cheating, you know like Iraq and Libya.

You know unfortunately, they try to do what the big boys do.

Which is develop this horrible weapons.

-Get a big stick. -Absolutely.

-Now there are some politicians, generals,

who will say that we are ultimately safer in the world because of nuclear weapons.

Nobody dares use them.

-The risk that they will be used through miscalculation, through human error.

Through unauthorized use.

Through extremists getting their hand on a nuclear weapon,

is higher by the day.

-What are the odds of us surviving as we are with the nuclear weapons?

-Bill Perry, Secretary of Defense of the US said to this day,

that we manage to avoid nuclear catastrophe by

good luck rather than good management.

We might be able to make it five, ten, 20 years, you know.

-But eventually...

-But eventually, chickens are coming home to roost.

-Mohamed spent his career trying to stave off one nuclear escalation after another.

But he retains a glimmer of hope for peace.

Ever since the beginning of mankind, we've been at war.

Biblically there's Cain and Abel.

Do you think we'll ever be able to overcome that part of our

genetic structure that makes us, war like?

-I have to believe that we can.

You know I have to believe in the goodness of human spirit you know.

-The interconnectivity that we have today due to technology,

isn't that going to be of some use to us?

-I think so.

We have to talk to each other.

We have to educate each other.

We have to understand each other.

If I look at young people now, you know, I have hope you know.

They are color blind, religious blind, ethnic blind, that they would treat each

other as part of the same human family.

That if somebody dies in Darfur, I will react the same way if somebody dies in LA.

The same day we will end nuclear weapons.

-I'm in agreement, thank you so much.

-Thanks, thanks a lot.

-I find Dr. ElBaradei's perspective on nuclear conflict very sobering.

We are only here because of good luck, not good management.

But, Mohammed has hope, that our children and their children will bring

about fundamental change.

That they will create a world, not of fear and oppression.

But of hope and dignity.

A world where borders don't exist, I share that hope.

But how do we make this monumental transition from war to peace?

If there's one place on earth that might serve as a test case,

it's Rwanda.

Just over two decades ago, a horrifying genocide took place here.

On April 6th, 1994, Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana

was killed when his plane was shot down.

This event added fuel to the long simmering tension between the country's

two major ethnic groups, the Hutus and the Tutsis.

The majority of Hutus blamed the death of the Hutu president

on the minority Tutsis.

The ensuing conflict lasted only 100 days, but it claimed a million lives,

one tenth of the population.

The genocide ended when Tutsi General Paul Kagame's

rebel forces seized the capital Kigali.

Six years later, Kagame was elected President, an office he still holds.

And today, more than two decades on from the genocide,

there has been no return to violence.

I want to understand why?

And the President agreed to talk to me.

During the genocide, Hutus systematically attacked the Tutsis.

You're seeing a lot of the murders and atrocities that had

been committed against the Tutsis.

Didn't make you wanna do just a little revenge?

-It caused a lot of anger against those who are doing it, absolutely.

I wouldn't call it revenge as such but, it was driving me to

say how fast can we rein these people in?

-Do you think that justice and revenge are different? -They're different.

They are different and in fact revenge may be justified,

but it is not justice.

Justice is something else.

Justice allows the aggrieved parties to get along.

While revenge doesn't allow you to move on.

It only allows and cause more revenge to happen.

And then you are in a vicious circle.

-Now you're making this argument in spite of your own family losses?

-Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Many, many family members lost, absolutely.

MORGAN: When Kagame became President in 2000 he began a nationwide program of

reconciliation to try to heal the wounds of genocide.

Well, you go right to work on reconciliation.

-Right. -That had not happened before you?

-We knew it would go nowhere unless we reversed the politics of hatred and...

-Separation. -Separation and division and so on.

So let's try something else.

So let's agree that, irrespective of our differences, we can get along,

we can work together.

-Alright you teach the population how to forgive, overcome the idea of revenge.

How do you go about doing that?

-We must do something that allows people to build and hopeful for the future.

We went to the homes of our citizens.

And reconciliation was kind of a conversation, it was a discussion.

Look, we have a lot of places to point fingers, but that doesn't help.

What helps is confronting this situation as we should.

MORGAN: President Kagame's bold efforts to bring peace to Rwanda have included

limiting freedom of speech and the press and suppressing political opponents.

But I'm told his reconciliation program has touched the lives

of millions of Rwandans.

I want to meet some of them.

I was connected with Mariya Izagiriza and Filbert Ntezirizaza,

who were introduced several years ago by Bishop Deo Gashagaza.

I'm meeting them at the Kigali Genocide Memorial.

Tutsi.

Hutu.

-Yes.

-Filbert, Mariya, see I know all that.

So, I would like you Mariya to tell me as much as you can remember,

about what happened to you in 1994?

(speaking in native language).

MORGAN: As they fled from the killers Mariya's family got separated.

Her husband and brother-in-law ran off with two of their sons.

Mariya took her infant daughter, young son and her step daughter.

-You ran and hid?

You hid in the bushes, is that right?

-Yes.

MORGAN: Mariya spent five days in the bush, with the children before they escaped.

They walked for a week until they made it to safety, in neighboring Burundi.

Did you ever see your husband and family again?

(speaking in native language).

Filbert, what do you know about her husband children?

(speaking in native language).

-The genocide in Rwanda in 1994 shocked the world.

But the outbursts of murder was the result of decades of divisive politics

in the country.

People had been indoctrinated to believe that Hutus and Tutsis,

were natural enemies.

Filbert, a Hutu was involved with a group that killed Mariya's husband and sons,

who were Tutsis.

-Filbert killed her relatives? -Yes.

(speaking in native language).

MORGAN: Filbert joined a local Hutu militia.

Along with nine other men, he set up an ambush near Mariya's village to catch Tutsis

fleeing from the violence.

They captured Mariya's husband, brother-in-law, and the two boys.

They took them to a quarry, and threw them to their deaths.

-How does it happen that the two of you are together?

-Filbert came to you, to ask forgiveness.

Is that so?

(speaking in native language).

-So it sounds like we're talking about forgiveness here.

But, was it like that?

-Two years? -Yes.

-Here we are today, what do we have?

(speaking in native language).

-She smiles.

(speaking in native language).

-Same with you?

-On the one hand, awful.

And on the other hand it is a wonderful story.

It gives hope to all mankind.

(singing in native language)

Mariya and Filbert now live as neighbors in a specially created

reconciliation village.

It's a place designed to forge real bonds between victims and perpetrators of the genocide.

Filbert helps Mariya with her farm, and they spend time together, as friends.

Walking around the genocide memorial makes me realize the enormous human toll

of this conflict.

And that there are hundreds of thousands of stories like Mariya, and Filbert's.

What happened in Rwanda is one of humanity's great tragedies.

It is also a source of great hope.

A country can recover from civil war.

People can reconcile, even after genocide.

Forgiveness, that takes great sacrifice and courage.

From the President.

From Mariya and Filbert, and the millions of others, who put aside revenge,

to embrace peace.

War has been around ever since we've had to share resources like,

land, food, water.

I don't think the end of war is imminent.

But what I've learned from the remarkable people that I have met,

is that we have to get better at making peace.

When the bloodshed ends, and the dust settles over shattered homes,

we must do everything we can to resist taking revenge,

and instead search for our own humanity.

After all, we are the species that thrives on cooperation.

It's what we've always done best.

Captioned by Cotter Captioning Services.